Star Trek Discovery and Yet Another Crappy Paywall

To my surprise Movie Bob says Star Trek Discovery is good. It’s too bad I may never see it.

One of the issues we’re running into currently in the world of tech business is that everyone wants to own everything. Not too long ago the idea in business was that specific businesses would focus on what they did best, and then either buy or supply others in the chain. So a chip company would supply to an electronics company which would then sell to a distributor who would ship inventory to individual retailers. Different types of companies require different resources and mindsets and so each company would focus on what they were good at. Now the idea is that companies should own the entire stack. From components to selling the finished product to the end user. We can see this mentality in full contrast in the world or modern media.

Hulu and Netflix are now being seen as competitors to content creation companies and so those companies are deciding to launch their own platforms. Why give away revenue to platforms if you can keep it all yourself? So Disney is pulling out of Netflix soon’ish to launch their own thing, and now CBS is pushing their All Access platform using Star Trek Discovery as the bait. The problem for me is not unwillingness to pay for content, but that there are so many hours in the day…

So currently I subscribe to Hulu for current shows, Netflix for large back catalogue of BBC shows, and use iTunes for clean up to watch things like Kill Joys. (I also pay for YouTube Red, but that’s more of a “show your support” thing.) This gives me more shows to watch than I know what to do with. Even at 2-3 hours of watching a day it will be a long time before I’m in need of more. So with CBS pushing their All Access Platform I just don’t see the need, nor have the interest, in spending another $10 per month. They have a surprisingly large catalogue of TV to offer, but the only thing I’m interested in is Star Trek. I’d even be willing just to drop the $25 for Season 1 on iTunes if it comes out.

I’ll be curious to see how this works out for CBS. My concern is that with all of these companies trying to own everything that at a certain point it becomes untenable for the customers. That it goes from even being a decision making process to where customers shut down because the landscape has become too confusing. The hope had been with Hulu that it would be a platform owned by the broadcasters so that as it grew they could all profit from the success, but it seems like even this is being kneecapped now. There’s such a demand for ownership that collaboration falls by the way side. This may seem like a good idea from the CEO level, but I can say as a customer it’s getting to the point that I’m simply ignoring the products. CBS can make a few bucks from me by showing Star Trek Discovery on a platform I’m already using, or I can go back to watching Super Natural.

This is something to ponder in your own business. Are you trying to control so much that you end up destroying your own industry?

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1 Comment

I’ve been dealing with users on my network using
All Access for a few years. It is the beginning of the end.
I’ve found it impossible to maintain even the least bit of security
on my machines when they use any of the all access products. It’s basically the
road to perpetually full dvrs and an invitation for Vampire Shift news contacts from your service provider. It destroys the mobile devices and encourages using multi-network mobile services leeched off of others paid cell phones. I had a friend review the network as well and she was shocked by the number of bad drivers. It’s crap.